A Case For Flipped Classrooms in Higher Education

The 2015 NMC Horizon Report:  Higher Education Edition identifies flipped classrooms as an important development in educational technology for higher education. The time-to-adoption horizon for flipped classrooms is one year or less. The flipped classroom is a form of blended learning that is aligned with learner-centric, inquiry-based learning strategies. The Horizon Report defines the flipped class room as “a model of learning that rearranges how time is spent both in and out of class to shift the ownership of learning from the educators to the students,” (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2015, p. 38). This requires a pedagogical shift, not merely the adding of online activities.

Critics of flipping the classroom have argued that it is problematic to deal with a pedagogical problem by adding more work for students outside of the class. According to the Flipped Learning Network Report (2013), Gary Stager, educator and journalist, argues that the flipped learning model “places too much emphasis on lectures and homework, neither of which is productive, and merely flips the position of the two,” and that it is symptomatic of a bloated curriculum (p. 16). Yet, the former is a strawman argument. Simply adding more work outside of a class is not flipping a classroom. A flipped classroom is one approach to blended learning, which requires a reimagining and a reconfiguration of learning by aligning all activities with learning outcomes. It is learner-centered. Although I agree that the curriculum in higher education is bloated, I disagree that flipped classrooms and other forms of blended learning are symptomatic of this trend. In fact, the effective implementation of a flipped classroom model reduces bloat by putting the students back at the center of their learning experience.

Flipped classrooms and other blended learning approaches make use of multimedia tools, as well as traditional and face-to-face learning activities to more effectively bring about learning outcomes. Developing such a course takes a great deal of work and a lot of time. One issue here is administrative support. As a doctoral student, I have been teaching university students for six years. I was repeatedly told that teaching was something I had to do so that I could do my research; teaching was not a priority it was paying dues to do the real philosophical work. But, that was never my experience. Teaching was what I was doing, what I wanted to be doing, and what I wanted to do well. And to me, teaching is very philosophical work. I have been teaching hundreds of college students every year about critical thinking, feminism, and philosophy. I want to give them the best learning experience I can, but that goal was not built into the PhD track. This is just one example from one perspective of how the structure of academia needs to be rethought to bring student learning back into sharp focus.

As a philosopher, I was trained to teach philosophy by imparting wisdom. Teacher-centric lectures wherein knowledge is transmitted from the wise philosopher to the unknowing students are the norm in philosophy. Teaching philosophy well might require employing the socratic method, but it certainly does not require putting learners at the center of their learning experience. After all, what do they know about the mind/body problem, skepticism, or the Categorical Imperative?

In my experience, learning outcomes are those bullet points that faculty have to put on their syllabi to satisfy administrators.  My guess is that most faculty, certainly most philosophy faculty do not design their courses around learning outcomes. Syllabi are structured from content, rather than from learning outcomes. I could never let go of any of the content on my feminist theory syllabus. The syllabus has been bloated since I’ve been teaching it, but I have to wonder now how many undergraduates could benefit from a teacher-centric course designed around as many difficult and—from my perspective—thought provoking articles on gender, sex, race, disability, and knowledge as I could fit onto the syllabus. By researching blended learning and flipped classrooms, I have learned that paring down the readings by beginning the course design from learning outcomes rather than content is necessary for this and any other class I teach to enhance learning.

Beginning course design from the learner’s perspective requires one to rethink every aspect of a course starting with learning outcomes rather than content. Beginning with the learning outcomes, I can incorporate activities for each section of the course that I believe would best produce a specific learning goal. Last year, I began to blend my critical thinking classes by including a variety of activities aimed at accomplishing learning outcomes. Some activities occur outside of class and some occur in the classroom. I have incorporated both directed and inquiry-based strategies to produce effective learning objectives through online video tutorials, drill-and-practice exercises, presentation-building, blogging, fishbowl discussions, games, and scavenger hunts, to name a few. These activities are never added on to a lesson; rather they are bound to the learning outcomes from the start. Every class activity has the purpose of enhancing learning. Flipping a classroom is a thorough transformation of a course. As Hamden, McKnight, McKnight, and Arfstrom argue in the Horizon Report (2015):  “The learning environment transforms into a dynamic and more social space where students can participate in critiques or work through problems in teams,” (p. 39). The learning environment itself becomes learner-centered, and learners take responsibility for and gain confidence from their learning activities.

Designing a learner-centered course requires support and time. Faculty must be willing to make an up-front time investment to design and develop a class that puts the learner in the driver’s seat, allowing them to be engaged, motivated, and take ownership of their learning process. Administration must be willing to provide support and resources for faculty. The benefits are myriad. The up-front investment pays off, since future iterations of the class will have a solid structure built on learning outcomes. Design and development in future classes may require some post-evaluation tweaks, but the development will be solid.

I have spent a number of hours in recent months redesigning a course I teach nearly every semester: critical thinking. Initially, I adopted a pre-made syllabus from a colleague, learned the content, and did my best to convey the content to the students during class time. I gave plenty of examples and was sure to engage the students and encourage them to ask questions. I then gave them homework and exams. Over the past couple of years, however, the course slowly became more interactive. Last year I began integrating some games. This fall, the course will look much different. Students will be asked to read sections of their text, as in previous semesters, but that is where any similarity to early iterations of this course ends. This year, students will go through an elearning module on a given topic outside of class, such as this one on understanding the parts of arguments:

Chapter 3, Section 1: Identifying Arguments

The module is self-paced, always accessible for review, and includes activities aligned with directed learning strategies, such as tutorial and drill-and-practice exercises. Students will be motivated to complete these tutorials outside of class, since the embedded quizzes are worth points.

In class, students will not be sitting in their chairs with glazed over eyes listening to me discuss the content while I click through powerpoint slides. Students will arrive, have a chance to tell me what the module is about, ask questions, and clarify concepts through discussion and examples. Students will then participate in activities aligned with inquiry-based learning strategies, such as presentations, projects, games, and scavenger hunts. This lesson plan is aligned with the above tutorial on understanding the parts of arguments. It incorporates the use of spreadsheets as part of an inquiry-based learning activity to enhance students’ learning by allowing them to identify arguments in their lived environment:

Here is the spreadsheet the students will use for an in-class scavenger hunt activity:

Here is the spreadsheet the students will use for an individual learning activity:

The learning activities done outside of class and in class work together to increase collaboration, motivation, and engagement while achieving learning outcomes. Learners are in charge of their learning process and they are engaged in learning activities. In the coming year, I intend to make my classes even more learner-centric by adding student choice to some learning activities. By personalizing the learning activities, students can have more autonomy, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. Further, this model allows marginalized learners, as well as more vocal learners, to be more engaged in class activities.

In conclusion, flipping a classroom requires much more than merely adding online activities to existing content; a flipped classroom is the result of a learner-centered strategy that incorporates a variety of carefully planned activities to enhance learning. Learners in higher education, and philosophy specifically, could benefit from reimagined approaches to teaching that decenter course content and begin course development from learning objectives.

Resources:

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2015-higher-education-edition/

Hamden, N., McKnight, P., McKnight, K., Arfstrom, K. (2013).  A Review of Flipped Learning. Lake Forest, IL:  The Flipped Learning Network. Retrieved from http://www.flippedlearning.org/cms/lib07/VA01923112/Centricity/Domain/41/LitReview_FlippedLearning.pdf

Integrating RSS Feeds Into Class Activities

How can an RSS feeds be used in higher education? 

Initially, I could not conceive of how using RSS feeds in the classroom could help to achieve learning objectives. Yet, when I began thinking about constructivist learning strategies, it became clear that constructing classroom activities that incorporate use of the RSS feed could provide relative advantages including, and beyond, meeting learning objectives.

I have constructed a lesson plan for my Feminist Theory course, for a class that follows the reading and discussion of Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege”. The reading is both philosophical and personal. Students tend to connect pretty well with this text, especially McIntosh’s list of privileges. What I would really like students to think about when we read this text, though, is not only how they might experience white privilege or NOT experience white privilege, but also how white privilege operates in our world, given the persistence of racism and protected white ignorance in the United States. I decided that an in-class activity where students could scan a number of articles through feedly would help to illuminate the gravity and relevance of white privilege, given the race relations in our country. Here is the lesson plan, along with the assessment rubric:

In constructing the lesson plan, I began to think of a number of similar assignments where incorporating an RSS feed would provide some relative advantages to my classes. It could be used to connect students to one another via their blogs, which could be helpful for sharing and collaboration. It could be used to identify relevant cases in medical ethics or environmental ethics. It could be used to spark student ideas for presentations. The possibilities are endless. The most difficult thing about constructing this lesson plan was also the most rewarding thing–constructing the lesson plan! In higher education, it is unheard of to use lesson plans, as such; however, it is a really rewarding process. It allowed me to think creatively about the reasons for the activity, to list the learning objectives for the students, and to brainstorm about other ideas for the class.

If I had more time, I would construct a number of feedly-based lesson plans, along with plans for the first week to set up the feedly account. I would then look at how feedly was being used in each of those activities to ensure coherence and maximum benefit for the students.

I plan to use this lesson plan in the fall, so I will post updates with a reflection of how it went and how the lesson can be improved.